By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – The empty building next to Courthouse Plaza will go back on the open market, councilors agreed Tuesday.

L/A Arts surrendered the empty 84 Lisbon St. building to the Lewiston City Council in April.

Now it’s time to get a new tenant into the building.

“We don’t want to let it sit empty too long,” said Lincoln Jeffers, assistant to the city administrator.

Councilors voted to begin accepting bids to redevelop and use the building.

Lewiston purchased the building at 84 Lisbon St. in 1999 and planned to raze it to clear space for the Courthouse Plaza. Once two adjacent buildings were razed, however, they found they had more than enough space. L/A Arts asked to take over the building, planning to raise $1.2 million to renovate it. Later, they agreed to help pay for work at Courthouse Plaza.

The arts group had planned to make the ground floor an art gallery and the second floor offices. It had paid $240,000 for renovations that included fixing the roof, doing electrical work and building an elevator shaft.

But the arts group could never raise enough money to complete the work and finally surrendered the building to the city in April.

Councilors also agreed to seek redevelopment bids for the 30,000-square-foot lot on the southwest corner of Lisbon and Cedar streets. That lot is is made up of four smaller parcels downtown.

“We hope that something will be proposed to add something to what some call the missing tooth feature of Lisbon Street,” City Administrator Jim Bennett said.

Bennett said he does not expect to have finished proposals in time for the council’s August meeting.

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